Religious Belief in the Later Wittgenstein—A ‘Form of Life’, a ‘Hinge’, a ‘Weltanschauung’, Something Else or None of These?

Abstract

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later remarks on religious belief (from around the mid-1930s onwards) have often been and continue to be interpreted in connection with other terms he used in his later philosophy. The most common interpretations argue that Wittgenstein understands religious belief as a language-game or a group of language-games, as (part of) a form of life, and/or as a hinge/part of a world-picture. The term ‘Weltanschauung’ is also occasionally used to interpret Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief, and finally, Wittgenstein himself sporadically uses the term ‘style of thinking’ in connection with religious belief. In this paper, I will first conduct a meta-analysis of the secondary literature, presenting examples of the various lines of interpretation and criticism of these approaches. Subsequently, the various interpretations are examined to see whether or not they can actually be read from Wittgenstein’s remarks. The result of this investigation is that those interpretations which pursue a systematizing presentation of Wittgenstein’s remarks are, to a certain extent, reductive representations insofar as they can only draw on some of Wittgenstein’s remarks to support their interpretation, while other remarks stand in tension with the respective interpretation.

1. Introduction

Ludwig Wittgenstein dealt with questions of (Christian) religious belief throughout almost his entire life, both personally and philosophically. Even if a strict separation does not seem possible, a rough division can be made insofar as Wittgenstein, on a personal level, struggles above all with whether or how he can become a religious person. From a philosophical point of view, in his earlier philosophy, he situates religious belief in the realm of the inexpressible, which manifests itself in an attitude toward the world as a whole. Later, however, he examines, among other things, religious language-games, such as belief in the Last Judgment, in terms of their functioning, undertaking conceptual investigations into the use of words such as ‘God’, ‘dogma’, but also ‘belief’, ‘proof’, ‘Gleichnis’ (‘parable’/‘allegory’), ‘punishment’, and the like in religious contexts.

Very early on, interpreters began to engage with Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief and the implications of his philosophical writings for religious belief, interestingly enough, even before the first publication of relevant remarks written either by Wittgenstein himself or reproduced by students, such as the “Lectures on Religious Belief” (Wittgenstein 1966b). This early interest was probably brought about not least by the publication of memoirs and correspondences with Wittgenstein, such as Norman Malcolm’s memoirs, which also include Georg Henrik von Wright’s “A Biographical Sketch” (Malcolm 1958; expanded in the second edition of 1984 to include letters from Wittgenstein to Malcolm). The Philosophical Investigations (1953) themselves may also have inspired some interpreters to consider applying the philosophical remarks found there to the investigation of religious language. Jerry H. Gill, for example, already wrote in an essay in 1964: “Much has been written concerning the importance and implications of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later philosophy for ascertaining the meaning and nature of religious language” (Gill 1964, p. 59).

However, research received a significant boost with the publication of relevant writings, lecture notes and remarks by Wittgenstein, such as “Lecture on Ethics” (English 1965/German 1968), “Lectures on Religious Belief” (English 1966/German 1968), “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough” (German 1967/English 1971) and various remarks from his Nachlass, in particular Culture and Value (German 1977/English 1980), and above all, of course, the Nachlass itself (Wittgenstein 2000, 2016).

In almost every contribution on Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief, the difficulty of the textual situation is rightly pointed out at the outset: there are not too many remarks by the later Wittgenstein on this topic, and they are scattered across his Nachlass; in addition, many of these remarks were not written down by him but are based on lecture notes and reports of conversations. Finally, some remarks are more personal, while others are more philosophical in nature. Nevertheless, after such cautionary notes, in many interpretations, a connection is drawn to other terms used by Wittgenstein in his philosophical investigations. Thus, in the case of the late Wittgenstein, we most often find the description of religious belief as a (group of) language-game(s), (part of) a ‘form of life’ or a ‘hinge’ (and thus as part of a ‘world-picture’). These and other interpretations, as well as critical positions, are presented in the following chapter.

2. Interpretations of Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Religious Belief

It is not possible within the scope of an essay to provide even a rudimentary overview of the interpretations of Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief since the 1950s (primarily due to the volume of literature, but also because some interpreters have changed their views over the years). I will therefore limit myself to (1) working out the main lines of the most common interpretations using a few examples (Section 2.1 and Section 2.2), (2) presenting two less common approaches to interpretation that demonstrate further possibilities of connection with other terms used by Wittgenstein (Section 2.3), and (3) outlining some critical positions (Section 2.4). It should also be noted that in most cases, I am unable to trace the respective interpretation in its entirety, but only refer to the connection with other terms used by Wittgenstein. The aim of this section is to show the wide range and diversity of (actual and possible) interpretations without assessing them at this stage (for evaluation, see Section 3).

2.1. Religion, or Rather Religious Belief, as Language-Game(s), and/or (Part of a) Form of Life

Especially among early interpreters, references to Wittgenstein’s terms “language-game”1 and “form of life”2 are most frequently found in interpretations of his remarks on religious belief. As the title of this section already suggests, however, this is by no means accompanied by uniformity in the references and interpretations.

In some cases, religion is seen as a comprehensive language-game: Franz von Kutschera, for example, takes the position that for Wittgenstein religion is “a language-game among others […], with its own way of looking at things, talking about them, and justifying statements” (von Kutschera 2019, p. 68; my transl.). In his much earlier monograph Vernunft und Glaube (1990), he refers in chapter 2.3 (“Religion als Sprachspiel”) to a connection with the concept of form of life, but here too he emphasizes the concept of language-game when he writes the following: “The remarks [in the “Lectures on Religious Belief”] are unsystematic and, on the whole, rather obscure, but it is fair to say that Wittgenstein, on the one hand, regards religion as an independent language-game, but, on the other hand, also advocates a non-cognitive interpretation of religious statements” (von Kutschera 1990, p. 108; my transl. and insertion). Here, the term “language-game” is used in a broad sense accordingly, meaning “the entire language of a culture, linked to a particular worldview, standards of rationality, practical norms, etc.” (von Kutschera 1990, p. 111; my transl.).3

Cyril Barrett, on the other hand, uses the term “language-game” in both the singular and the plural. The background to this is the following conviction: “Though Wittgenstein does not say so explicitly, it seems reasonable to suppose that he would admit a diversity of language-games belonging to a wider language-game that embraced them all” (Barrett 1991, p. 118). For example, there are various scientific language-games for different scientific disciplines—physics, chemistry, biology, etc. And even within a scientific discipline, according to Barrett, there are different language-games, such as mechanics or optics, in the field of physics. This does not mean that there are not any similarities (“there is no language-game that does not have some activities and rules in common with other language-games” (Barrett 1991, p. 119)); nevertheless, scientists working in different disciplines carry out their activities “according to the rules of [their] own particular branch of science” (Barrett 1991, p. 118).

Even if, as Barrett says, there are certain similarities between different language-games, the central characteristic in his view is still the clear difference between one language-game and another:

Yet a language-game, to be distinct from other language-games, must be characterized by a distinctive set of activities (with their attendant beliefs and assumptions) and a distinctive set of rules. However much it may resemble other language-games, it must be unique in its combination of activities and their purposes, as well as in its set of rules. Thus not only are, say, the various scientific disciplines distinct language-games because of their distinctive activities and rules, but science itself is a language-game as distinct from law, politics, commerce, or farming, as practices, as they are from one another and from their theoretical counterparts (jurisprudence, political economy, economics, agriculture) which, in turn, are distinct from one another.

(Barrett 1991, p. 119)

As far as religious belief is concerned, Barrett assigns it, together with ethics and aesthetics, to the “language of value” and separates it from “every other form of language”: “The ethical, aesthetic and religious language-games belong to the wider language-game of ‘expression of value’, just as physics, chemistry and biology belong to the language-game of science. More accurately, they are manifestations or realizations of the language-games of the expression of value and of science respectively” (Barrett 1991, p. 121). Religious belief is conceived here, on the one hand, as a distinct language-game within the framework of this “language of value” (e.g., he writes on p. 153 of “the language-game of religious belief”), but on the other hand, it is contrasted with science,4 as well as with dogma and theology.5

One of those—influential—interpreters who uses the term “language-game” in connection with religious belief in the plural is Dewi Z. Phillips, as the example of the following remark clearly shows: “I would not speak myself of ‘the language game of religion’. Religious belief involves many language-games” (Phillips [1970] 1993; [1989] 1993, p. 31/note 2; for more details, see below).

A common feature of these very different interpretations is not least their emphasis on the importance of the religious way of life, of religious practice, and their distinction between religious language-games and those of (natural) science (for an overview, see, for example, Clack 1999, pp. 78–87).

The situation is very similar to interpretations in which Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief are also or primarily linked to those on the “form of life.” In fact, in many interpretations, religious belief is regarded as both a language-game (or language-games) and (part of) a form of life. However, the relationship between language-game and form of life is interpreted differently.

Norman Malcolm, for example, addressed the “religious form of life” as early as 1960 (Malcolm 1960, p. 62). Fifteen years later, we read the following: “Religion is a form of life; it is language embedded in action—what Wittgenstein calls a ‘language-game’. Science is another. Neither stands in need of justification, the one no more than the other” (Malcolm [1975] 1977, p. 212).

Barrett and Phillips also take religious belief not only as language-games, but bring its connection with the concept of form of life into play. Barrett leaves somewhat unclear the relationship he sees between ‘language-game’ and ‘form of life’—at one point he writes that “the variety of language-games [is] based on a corresponding variety of forms of life” (Barrett 1991, p. 145), in which, therefore, the form of life is regarded as primary; later in the book, however, he expresses himself more noncommittally regarding this relationship: “the use of a word or group of words in a language-game [is] connected with a particular form of life” (Barrett 1991, pp. 176–77). Whatever the exact relationship between language-games and forms of life may be, for Barrett, religious belief seems to represent a language game and a form of life. Phillips, however, sees things differently. In the essay in which he expressed his conviction that religious belief encompasses several language-games, he rejects the idea that religious belief should be understood as a separate form of life: “Similarly, I would not speak of religion as a form of life, but as existing in a form of life. The significance of religious belief could not be elucidated without bringing out how it illuminates other features of human life” (Phillips [1989] 1993, p. 31/note 2).

In interpretations in which the concept of a form of life is regarded as a primary characteristic of Wittgenstein’s understanding of religious belief, the emphasis is usually placed on the primacy of action (over speech) for the believer (especially with reference to the “Lectures on Religious Belief”). Hilary Putnam, for example, sees parallels between Søren Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein in that for both of them an understanding of “religious discourse in any depth” is only possible on the basis of “understanding the form of life to which it belongs” (Putnam 1992, p. 154):

What characterizes that form of life is not the expressions of belief that accompany it, but a way—a way that includes words and pictures, but is far from consisting in just words and pictures of living one’s life, of regulating all of one’s decisions. Here the believer, Kierkegaard, would add something that Wittgenstein does not say, but that I think he would agree with: namely, that a person may think and say all the right words and be living a thoroughly non-religious life.

(Putnam 1992, p. 154)

Anat Biletzki (2010) provides another reason for preferring to characterize religious belief as a form of life: while viewing religious belief as a distinct language-game has given rise to criticism of fideism (see below), the concept of a form of life has “a more amorphous air about it” (Biletzki 2010, p. 152)—and this is precisely where its advantage lies. For the “meanderings” of the term “between the pluralistic (rather than relativistic) recognition of diverse forms of life and the Wittgensteinian insight that these are all human forms of life” (Biletzki 2010, p. 152) enable us to speak both of “distinct forms of life” and of “communication, i.e., human communication between them” (Biletzki 2010, p. 153):

As opposed to the strict reading of different language-games as being incommensurable and therefore of there being no possibility for religious and secular language-games to interact in any way, this acceptance of a human form of life underlying particular forms of life […] offers a stage upon which the religious form of life and the secular one can perform together.

(Biletzki 2010, p. 153)

Religious language-games (used by her in the plural) are then related to the religious form of life insofar as these religious language-games “display specific peculiarities (having to do, e.g., with the use of terms like ‘god’ and institutions like prayer) in a religious form of life” (Biletzki 2010, p. 154).

Regardless of whether the concept of language-game or that of form of life is interpreted as primary, as already indicated, early interpretations in particular are to a significant degree about establishing religious belief in its rightful place vis-à-vis science. In both cases, the aim is to separate religious speech and action from that of science, for example, by referring to a “difference in grammar” between a “language about God” and a “physical object language” (Rhees [1969] 2003, p. 132). This distinction serves not least to reject the application of scientific criteria of rationality and objectivity to the realm of religion.

However, this is precisely what provoked criticism very early on. From a philosophical perspective (I will not address theological criticism in this essay), this criticism has been particularly prominent since 1967, when Kai Nielsen coined the term “Wittgensteinian fideism,”6 which is still debated today.7 Nielsen sees this “Wittgensteinian fideism” as characterized by “[t]he following cluster of dark sayings” (Nielsen 1967, p. 192):

• The forms of language are the forms of life.
• What is given are the forms of life.
• Ordinary language is all right as it is.
• A philosopher’s task is not to evaluate or criticise language or the forms of life, but to describe them where necessary and to the extent necessary to break philosophical perplexity concerning their operation.
• The different modes of discourse which are distinctive forms of life all have a logic of their own.
• Forms of life taken as a whole are not amenable to criticism; each mode of discourse is in order as it is, for each has its own criteria and each sets its own norms of intelligibility, reality and rationality.
• These general, dispute-engendering concepts, i.e., intelligibility, reality and rationality are systematically ambiguous; then exact meaning can only be determined in the context of a determinate way of life.
• There is no Archimedean point in terms of which a philosopher (or for that matter anyone else) can relevantly criticise whole modes of discourse or, what comes to the same thing, ways of life, for each mode of discourse has its own specific criteria of rationality/irrationality, intelligibility/unintelligibility, and reality/unreality (Nielsen 1967, pp. 192–93).

Of course, one does not have to agree with Nielsen’s assessment of these descriptions as “dark sayings” (not least because his manner of presentation may be what makes them obscure in the first place). Regardless, this list shows in condensed form the possible implications of interpretations that use the concepts of language-game and form of life8 to interpret Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief: with their help, Nielsen argues, the unassailability of religious belief by non-religious positions, such as philosophical analysis or a scientific approach, is pointed out—both with regard to language-games and forms of life. This is because different forms of life are governed by different “norms of intelligibility, reality and rationality” (Nielsen 1967, p. 193), and since there is no neutral (philosophical) ‘meta-standpoint’ from which a form of life can be judged according to criteria that transcend forms of life, these criteria are unassailable from the ‘outside’. Religious belief, conceived as an overarching language-game, as a group of specific language-games and/or as a form of life, cannot, as already stated, be refuted or even criticized in these interpretations using, for example, scientific criteria of rationality.

Even though Phillips is not yet mentioned in Nielsen’s early essay,9 he is one of those who addresses this criticism and subsequently clarifies his position. For example, he wrote as early as 1970 that he belonged to those interpreters who had characterized “religious beliefs as distinctive language games,” but had now “come to feel misgivings in some respects about doing so” (Phillips [1970] 1993, p. 56).10 These so-called “misgivings” refer to two aspects: 1. one could mistakenly assume that these are “esoteric games, enjoyed by the initiates but of little significance outside the internal formalities of their activities” (Phillips [1970] 1993, p. 57); 2. due to the “appeal to the internality of religious criteria of meaningfulness,” one could assume an attempt to immunize religious belief against outside criticism (Phillips [1970] 1993, p. 57). Against this background, Phillips explains his view that, on the one hand, “religious reactions to various situations cannot be assessed according to some external criteria of adequacy,” but that, on the other hand, “the connections between religious beliefs and such situations must not be fantastic” (Phillips [1970] 1993, p. 70). One of his examples in this context is: “some religious believers may try to explain away the reality of suffering, or try to say that all suffering has some purpose. When they speak like this, one may accuse them of not taking suffering seriously” (Phillips [1970] 1993, p. 70). Such statements are “fantastic” in the sense that they “ignore or distort what we already know” and do not adhere to the “standards of judgment” with which we are already acquainted (Phillips [1970] 1993, p. 70).

2.2. Religious Belief as (Part of) a World-Picture, or as Hinge(s)

In these interpretations of religious belief as language-games or (part of) a form of life described in the previous section, remarks from Wittgenstein’s latest manuscripts are also referred to at a very early stage, especially those first published in 1969 under the title On Certainty.11 In this context, Wittgenstein’s remarks on the ‘world-picture’ or ‘system of reference’ are particularly relevant (cf. Wittgenstein 1975, §§83, 93–97, 162, 167, 233, 262). The main reason for the interest in these remarks is that Wittgenstein, also in the context of his remarks on the propositions that make up our world-picture, speaks of “groundlessness”,12 which is intended to strengthen the interpretation of religious belief as a language-game/as language-games or (part of) a form of life (see, for example, Malcolm [1975] 1977, pp. 201–4). However, potential differences between the terms ‘language-game’/’form of life’ and ‘world-picture’/‘system of reference’, and the question of whether religious belief should also be understood as a world-picture or part of a world-picture, are not addressed in many cases.

A description of religious belief explicitly as (part of) a world-picture can be found, however, in a text by Iakovos Vasiliou (2001). He begins by expressing his conviction that Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief can be clarified by reading On Certainty, even though there are hardly any remarks where Wittgenstein explicitly comments on religious topics. More specifically, he draws parallels between Wittgenstein’s remarks on Moore’s propositions and those on religious belief (cf. Vasiliou 2001, p. 47). Referring to Wittgenstein’s remarks on the low significance of evidence/proof compared to the high significance of the life-guiding function of religion, as well as to his remark from 1947 in which he expresses his conviction that religious belief “could only be (something like) passionately committing oneself to a system of coordinates || a system of reference” (Wittgenstein 1998, p. 73e), Vasiliou sees similarities to Wittgenstein’s remarks on the world-picture in On Certainty. In this context, his interpretation of the riverbed metaphor13 is interesting, as he understands it in an unusually nuanced way. While a distinction is usually made only between the riverbed and the water, i.e., between regulatively used propositions and empirically used propositions, Vasiliou also takes up the sand mentioned in remark 99 of On Certainty:

Some propositions, those I have called M-propositions, form, as it were, the river-bed and are the hardened backdrop against which the others flow. Part of the river-bed is hard rock and susceptible only to an ‘imperceptible’ alteration over time, but some of it is sand, which shifts much more slowly than the flow of water, but more quickly than the stone, changing the appearance of the river. The line between river-bed, sand, and flowing water is not sharp, although one can choose examples of propositions that clearly belong in one category or another.

(Vasiliou 2001, pp. 40–41)

This interpretation allows Vasiliou to classify as regulative not only those (Moorean) propositions for which a change is hardly conceivable (such as those concerning the existence of the external world), but also religious propositions, which are not only not shared by everyone, but can also gain or lose regulative status for an individual.

As far as the relationship between ‘form of life’ and ‘world-picture’ is concerned, Vasiliou seems to use the two terms synonymously, due to the primacy of the aspect of action, because, according to Vasiliou, “there has already been a certain form of life, a certain world-picture” (Vasiliou 2001, p. 44), which forms the basis for the formulation of certain propositions.

The discourse on the connection between religious belief and world-picture is gaining new momentum through “hinge epistemology”14 that has been the subject of intense debate for several years.15

Three remarks in On Certainty, in which Wittgenstein uses the term ‘hinge’ or ‘hinges’16, give ‘hinge epistemology’ its name. In addition, other remarks from On Certainty are used in which Wittgenstein talks about world-picture or system of reference. And it is specifically the use of the term “system of reference” (Bezugssystem) in Wittgenstein (1975, §83)17 that serves as a starting point for some interpreters to apply Wittgenstein’s considerations from On Certainty to the definition of religious belief, since he also writes about a system of reference in a remark dated 21 December 1947:

It appears to me as though a religious belief could only be (something like) passionately committing oneself to a system of coordinates || a system of reference [Koordinatensystem || Bezugssystem]. Hence although it’s belief, it is really a way of living, or a way of judging life. Passionately taking up this interpretation. And so instructing in a religious belief would have to be portraying, describing that system of reference & at the same time appealing to the conscience. And these together would have to result finally in the one under instruction himself, of his own accord, passionately taking up that system of reference. It would be as though someone were on the one hand to let me see my hopeless situation, on the other depict the rescue-anchor, until of my own accord, or at any rate not led by the hand by the instructor, I were to rush up & seize it.

(Wittgenstein 1998, p. 73e; presentation of alternative formulations changed and my insertion)

Genia Schönbaumsfeld, for example, considers it “reasonable to assume that what Wittgenstein means by it [Bezugssystem] in CV is similar, if not identical, to what he means in OC” (Schönbaumsfeld 2023, p. 33; my insertion). However, in her view, there is a difference in that “committing to a religious ‘system of reference’ is ‘optional’ in the sense that if one were to lose one’s faith, this would not constitute an annihilation of all yardsticks (OC §492) (an annihilation of all principles of judgement)” (Schönbaumsfeld 2023, p. 34). Hence, the loss of religious belief is in this sense not comparable to doubting the existence of one’s own hands under normal circumstances. In this respect, according to Schönbaumsfeld, there is “a clear asymmetry between our most fundamental hinge commitments and what one could call more ‘personal’ hinge-commitments (such as religious belief) that need not be shared by others” (Schönbaumsfeld 2023, p. 34). However, this does not change the fact that religious belief is to be understood as a hinge:

Nevertheless, what makes belief in God a ‘hinge’ is not that this belief must be shared by everyone, but that loss of faith is not the loss of a merely isolated intellectual belief: if I lose my faith in God, I don’t just give up a single, independently specifiable, commitment, I lose a whole ‘world’—the entire Christian ‘system of reference’, for example […].

(Schönbaumsfeld 2023, p. 34)

Schönbaumsfeld also draws a connection to the concept of form of life, however, without explaining it in more detail. She writes that “hinge-commitments play the role of principles of judgement in the relevant form of life and are, in this much, the logical enabling conditions that allow the practice to operate” (Schönbaumsfeld 2023, p. 34).

Later on, she introduces another concept when she writes (in the context of the question of whether Wittgenstein was a relativist, which she answers with “no”18) that believers and non-believers “have different Weltanschauungen” (Schönbaumsfeld 2023, p. 53). A ‘Weltanschauung’ here is understood “as one’s overall sensibility and way of seeing things” (Schönbaumsfeld 2023, p. 52). However, as in the case of the form of life, she does not take up Wittgenstein’s own uses of the term (see next section) and, if I understand correctly, uses ‘Weltanschauung’ largely synonymously with the term ‘world-picture’.

One of the authors whose texts are particularly frequently discussed in the context of applying hinge epistemology to religious belief—whether in a positive or critical light—is Duncan Pritchard, not least because he coined another label for the position attributed to Wittgenstein: quasi-fideism. In “Exploring Quasi-Fideism” (2022), Pritchard succinctly summarizes the central elements of this position:

[W]hile Wittgenstein is claiming that religious conviction, at its root, is to be understood along arational lines (this is the fideistic part), he is not thereby arguing that all religious belief is to be understood arationally; indeed, one’s non-fundamental religious beliefs may well on this view enjoy a positive rational standing (which is why the view is not a straightforward version of fideism). Moreover, the idea is that religious belief is no different from ordinary non-religious belief in this regard, in that all belief, religious or otherwise, pre-supposes fundamental arational commitments (this is where the hinge epistemology comes in).

(Pritchard 2022, p. 27)

If we think back to Nielsen’s label of “Wittgensteinian fideism,” Pritchard’s approach differs from Nielsen’s characterization first of all in that religious belief is characterized not as a form of life but as based on arational hinge propositions. And only the “most basic religious convictions are lacking in the requisite rational support” (Pritchard 2022, p. 28); but this also applies analogously to our empirical beliefs. Immunity to criticism, therefore, applies only to “fundamental arational commitments”—with regard to both religious beliefs and our empirical convictions. “Non-fundamental religious beliefs”, on the other hand, are not immune in this way; at this level, “[r]eligious belief is to be rationally evaluated just like any other belief” (Pritchard 2022, p. 28).

Annalisa Coliva, among others, has raised objections to this “parity argument,” not least because of the different consequences that have already been mentioned above:

For, clearly, in the non-religious case, if it turned out that we cannot hold on to our hinges, this would open the door to forms of radical skepticism which would drag with them all our epistemic methods by means of which we form epistemically rational beliefs.

By contrast, in the religious case, we would certainly receive an existential blow, but nothing detrimental to the proper exercise of our rational faculties. That is, one might lose hope or faith in the meaningfulness of life, or in the possibility of being reunited with one’s loved ones in an afterlife. Yet, one would not lose the ability to form evidentially justified beliefs and, with it, a grip on epistemic rationality altogether.

(Coliva 2025, p. 4)

More fundamentally, using the example of the hinge “God exists,” she distinguishes between “de jure hinges” and “de facto hinges” (Coliva 2025, pp. 9–11). The former are “rational insofar as they are constitutive of epistemic rationality” (Coliva 2025, p. 9) and, like the ‘moves’ within a game, belong to “epistemic rationality just like the rules of a game” (Coliva 2025, p. 9). However, “God exists” cannot be considered a “hinge of epistemic rationality” (Coliva 2025, p. 10), as already explained. The latter are those hinges “that, having been verified endless times, are excluded from further empirical investigation, and now play a rule-like role”; but they can be questioned “if new, previously unavailable evidence comes to light” and they subsequently potentially obtain the status of empirically used propositions (Coliva 2025, p. 10). However, this would not only contradict Wittgenstein’s remarks, who “was very much opposed to considering the dispute between believers and non-believers as a factual one, capable, in principle, of being decided based on empirical evidence” (Coliva 2025, p. 11), but also runs counter to Pritchard’s intentions. In short, “religious hinges are neither constitutive of epistemic rationality nor supported by overwhelming empirical evidence. Thus, this interpretation too cannot be used to defend an intermediate position, capable of steering away from evidentialism and fideism” (Coliva 2025, p. 11).

As can already be seen from these examples of different interpretations, despite certain similarities (for example, in relation to the high value placed on religious belief for life and action, and the relatively low value placed on proof), there is no agreement even if Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief are linked to the same concepts used by Wittgenstein—be they the concepts of language-game, form of life, world-picture, or hinge. These differences in interpretation are of considerable significance for the conception of religious belief which is attributed to Wittgenstein in these interpretations. If, for example, religious belief is regarded as a comprehensive language-game or form of life that is either separate from other areas of our thinking/speaking, living, and acting, or influences these other areas, communication between believers and non-believers will be difficult or even impossible. By contrast, if religious belief is understood as a group of language-games or part of a form of life, and it is pointed out that, despite all the differences, there are also similarities between different language-games and parts of forms of life, this opens up possibilities for discourse between believers and non-believers. The same applies to the question of whether Wittgenstein would understand religious belief as a hinge or not (and if so, how broadly or narrowly it is understood, since this would influence a person’s world-picture to a greater or lesser extent).

2.3. Further Possible Systematizing Approaches to Interpretation

While the interpretations described above have been or are still the subject of intense debate, two further possible interpretations are hardly, if at all, discussed in the secondary literature—namely, the reference to the terms ‘Weltanschauung’ and ‘style of thinking’. However, since they too can potentially be related to Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief, I would now like to briefly outline these interpretations.

2.3.1. Religious Belief as a ‘Weltanschauung’

As has already been mentioned, the term ‘Weltanschauung’ is sometimes brought into play in the context of religious belief, for example, by Schönbaumsfeld, but also by Mauro Engelmann (2024)19, Alois Pichler (2024)20, and others. Whereas in these texts Wittgenstein’s own use of the term is not examined in detail, it becomes the focus of an interpretation by Stefan Majetschak (2024). As already mentioned (see previous section), there are differences between Wittgenstein’s examples of the foundations (Grundlagen) of a world-picture in On Certainty and those of a religious belief: the gain or loss of religious belief does not fundamentally call into question a person’s capacity to act (even if the worldview of the person concerned would certainly change significantly). Furthermore, religious and non-religious people agree on many elements of a world-picture that do not relate to religious belief.

Against this background, Majetschak asks whether conversion to a religious belief might be a change in ‘Weltanschauung’. That Majetschak poses a question here should be taken literally, insofar as he explicitly points out two uncertainties in the interpretation at the beginning of his proposed interpretation: 1. it is “not clear—and probably impossible to clarify—what he means exactly by this expression” (Majetschak 2024, p. 14; my transl.), and 2. due to the scant textual evidence, it is also impossible to determine with certainty what similarities or differences Wittgenstein himself associated with these two terms (cf. Majetschak 2024, p. 14).

After these preliminary remarks, he briefly explains the occurrences of the term in Wittgenstein’s writings—after the one in the Tractatus (cf. Wittgenstein 1922, 6.371), they are the characterization of “perspicious presentation” [übersichtliche Darstellung]21 (also formulated more cautiously in Wittgenstein 2009, §12222), of “[h]umor”23 as well as of “pragmatism”24 as a “Weltanschauung”—and subsequently proposes “understanding a ‘Weltanschauung’ as a kind of sub-system of reference within a world-picture. It would then be a specific way of seeing the world from particular, guiding points of view, whereby different Weltanschauungen can exist side by side or in historical succession within one and the same world-picture” (Majetschak 2024, p. 14; my transl.).

The remark about “passionately committing oneself to a system of coordinates || a system of reference” (Wittgenstein 1998, p. 73e), understood by several interpreters in the sense of a change in the world-picture, is understood in this interpretation as the assumption of a certain “Weltanschauung,” whose

primary function is to provide a framework for understanding and interpreting the world in which we find ourselves. It would be more accurate to describe religion in this sense as a sub-system of reference, because within a world-picture as the outermost epistemic system of reference for all thought and action, there can certainly exist multiple religious systems of reference, just as Judaism and Christianity can coexist against the backdrop of the European world-picture.

The Christianity that preoccupied Wittgenstein is here defined by the ‘coordinates’ of “salvation, resurrection, judgment, heaven, hell,” which—not least because of the way they are interconnected within the religious coordinate system—describe “the Christian solution of the problem of life” [Wittgenstein 2003, 169]. To the believer, this casts a net of religious convictions over the facts, thereby allowing him to see things in a different light than a non-believer can.

(Majetschak 2024, p. 19; my transl. and insertion)

While in hinge epistemology, religious belief is thus regarded as a hinge (not shared by everyone), in this interpretation, the religious system of reference is understood as a ‘Weltanschauung’ which, although it has its own ‘coordinates’, nevertheless allows believers to participate in most hinges of a more comprehensive world-picture. However, both approaches leave open the question of whether and how a more precise distinction can be made between shared and different parts of a world-picture (e.g., whether a difference exists only with regard to religious questions, or whether it also extends to other areas, such as dealing with “mysterious” events).

2.3.2. Style of Thinking

While the term ‘Weltanschauung’ (in Majetschak’s interpretation) focuses on the aspect of worldview or attitude toward the world, the term ‘style of thinking’ (cf. Schulte [1989] 1990; Weiberg 2022) refers in particular to different methods of investigation. As far as I am aware, this term is not discussed in the literature in connection with Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief but is explicitly linked to religious belief by Wittgenstein himself in his lectures of 1931/32.

According to Wittgenstein, for physicists, causality is “really a description of the style of their investigation,” which in turn influences the formulation of criteria for rationality (Wittgenstein 1980, p. 104):

Causality stands with the physicist for a style of thinking. Compare in religion the postulate of a creator. In a sense it seems to be an explanation, yet in another it does not explain at all. Compare a workman who finishes something off with a spiral. He can do it so that it ends in a knob or tapers off to a point. So with Creation. God is one style; the nebula another. A style gives us satisfaction; but one style is not more rational as another. Remarks about science have nothing to do with the progress of science. They rather are a style, which gives satisfaction. “Rational” is a word whose use is similar.

(Wittgenstein 1980, p. 104)

What becomes clear once again is the absence of ultimate justifications, in this case, in relation to different styles of thinking. Analogous to Wittgenstein’s later remarks on the form of life and the world-picture, it is pointed out here that judgments about ‘true’ or ‘false’ only come into play within the application of a style of thinking. And that is not all, the respective style of thinking not only determines “the manner or technique of reasoning or the form of its presentation,” but also “what can be considered a possible object of thought, because this style shapes the methods of investigation and justification” (Schulte [1989] 1990, pp. 60–61; my transl.). Finally, Wittgenstein here also rejects the view that we only have justified knowledge in the realm of science, whereas in the realm of religious belief, we only have unjustified belief.

A few years later, in his “Lectures on Aesthetics”—without reference to religion—Wittgenstein refers to his aim of encouraging his listeners to change their style of thinking:

I am in a sense making propaganda for one style of thinking as opposed to another. […]

How much we are doing is changing the style of thinking and how much I’m doing is changing the style of thinking and how much I’m doing is persuading people to change their style of thinking.

(Wittgenstein 1966a, p. 28)

The term “propaganda”—used here in a neutral sense—is consistent with the lack of justification for one style of thinking over another when faced with someone who has a different way of thinking. The rejection of universally accepted criteria for deciding whether one way of thinking is ‘better’ or ‘more correct’ means that I cannot give better reasons when I encounter someone who has a different style of thinking. If I want to convince this person of my style of thinking, I must instead use the means of persuasion.25

Wittgenstein’s thoughts on the style of thinking seem to be reflected, without mentioning the term, in the following remark, dated 24 September 1937. In this remark, Wittgenstein deals with religious allegories and states that they “dress up rules in pictures” that serve “to describe what we are supposed to do, but not to justify it”:

Religion says: Do this!—Think like that! but it cannot justify this and it only need to try to do so to become repugnant; since for every reason it gives, there is a cogent counter-reason.

It is more convincing to say: “Think like this!—however strange it may seem.—Or: “Won’t you do this?—repugnant as it is—”.

(Wittgenstein 1998, p. 34e)

Although the term “style of thinking” is not explicitly used here, the phrase “Think like that!” and the suggestion that there is a lack of compelling reasoning point in a very similar direction to those remarks about the style of thinking.

As can be seen from these remarks, Wittgenstein’s reflections in connection with the concepts of Weltanschauung and style of thinking resemble those in connection with the concepts of form of life and world-picture. It is, therefore, somewhat surprising that Wittgenstein’s use of the concepts presented in this section has received relatively little attention in the secondary literature.

2.4. Critical Views

While most interpretations attempt to systematize Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief by linking them to other terms, there are a few approaches that are critical of linking Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief with other concepts used by Wittgenstein. The criticism here mainly concerns attempts to attribute a philosophy of religion to Wittgenstein.

John Cottingham, for example, considers this attempt “in one way misleading, since he never produced any sustained piece of writing in this area” (Cottingham 2017, p. 639). Nevertheless, according to Cottingham, Wittgenstein’s remarks contain “a number of important features of the religious outlook that are easily overlooked, and which, when properly grasped, greatly enhance our understanding of what it is to subscribe to a religious worldview” (Cottingham 2017, p. 639). However, in order to avoid a reductive view, it is now important not to focus on and highlight just one aspect, but instead to consider them all:

These include (but are not exhausted by) a stress on religion as a form of life; a conception of religious claims as not competing with scientific explanations; the idea of religion as a framework of interpretation; and an emphasis on religious allegiance as passionate commitment. Wittgenstein’s views may not amount to a systematic theory of religion, or of religious language, but taken together they amount to a distinctive and highly original contribution that no student of the subject can afford to ignore.

(Cottingham 2017, p. 639)

According to Cottingham, it is important to keep this diversity of fruitful aspects in mind, as it would allow for a “far richer and more humane account of religion” than is the case in “the great bulk of contemporary work in philosophy of religion” (Cottingham 2017, pp. 648–49).

Michael Kober (2006), in contrast, opposes linking Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief with other terms he used (which Kober does not discuss in detail). In this context, he too argues against using Wittgenstein’s remarks to construct a specific theology or philosophy of religion. He justifies this, on the one hand, by pointing out that, due to the strong connection between the remarks on religious belief and “reflections on the course of his own life and personal development,” a transfer to “a philosophical or non-personal perspective” should be treated with caution (Kober 2006, pp. 87–88). On the other hand, it should be taken into account that “there are many aspects of religion which are not thematised by Wittgenstein” (Kober 2006, p. 111; see also Krebs, forthcoming). Referring to William James’ book The Varieties of Religious Experience (James 1902), which Wittgenstein appreciated, he therefore suggests reading Wittgenstein’s early and later remarks on religious belief as guided by an interest in understanding what constitutes the attitude of a religious person. In this, he sees a continuity between the early and late Wittgenstein: “Although Wittgenstein’s account of language underwent substantial change after the Tractatus period, his overall perspective on religion remains remarkably constant—due to the fact that it focuses mainly on religious attitudes.” (Kober 2006, p. 100). According to Kober, it was these specific attitudes of religious people that interested Wittgenstein most throughout his life, both personally and philosophically (cf. Kober 2006, p. 111).26

3. Evaluation

Even this highly selective overview will have shown that readers seeking an interpretation of Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief are likely to be left more confused than informed after reading his own remarks and the secondary literature: is religious belief for Wittgenstein a language-game, a group of language-games, (part of) a form of life, a hinge (as part of a world-picture), a Weltanschauung, a style of thinking? Or none of the above?

The main reason for the variety of possible interpretations lies, of course, in the very unusual way of philosophizing (not only, but especially) of the later Wittgenstein. Hardly any other philosopher so consequently refrains from definitions and theorizing, as he considers them to be the basis of philosophical confusion (cf., e.g., Wittgenstein 2009, §§5, 23–24, 65–71, 89–92, 107–9, 116).27 Consider, for instance, remark 7 of the Philosophical Investigations in which he introduces the concept of language-games (see Note 1). Here, we as readers are informed what Wittgenstein considers to encompass under the term ‘language-game’: elements of language acquisition (such as repeating words or naming objects) as well as a simple (“primitive”) language, but also “the whole, consisting of language and the activities into which it is woven” (Wittgenstein 2009, §7). It is not difficult to see that this is not a definition, or even a concrete description; all we are given is an indication that the interwovenness of language and action in connection with the use of the concept of language-games is important to Wittgenstein. Due to the text situation mentioned at the beginning, the difficulties of interpretation associated with this approach by Wittgenstein are found in an even more acute form in his remarks on religious belief.

This means, first of all, that evidence can be found for each of the interpretations presented here that appears to support the respective interpretation. Here are just a few examples: if one wants to link Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief to the concept of language-game, one can refer to remark 23 of the Philosophical Investigations (see Note 1), for example, where “praying” is explicitly mentioned as one of the examples of language-games. If one wants to emphasize the connection between language-game and form of life, one can use, for example, the diary entry of 23 February 1937: “A religious question is either a question of life or it is (empty) chatter. This language game—one could say—gets played only with questions of life” (Wittgenstein 2003, p. 211). Or just as well, “Why shouldn’t one form of life culminate in an utterance of belief in a Last Judgement” (Wittgenstein 1966b, p. 58)? If, however, the interpretation is primarily aimed at establishing a link with the concept of form of life in the sense that Wittgenstein is less concerned with the expression of belief than with the significance of religious belief for one’s own life, one might refer to the remark from 1950 that “what is important is not the words you use or what you think while saying them, so much as the difference they make at different points in your life. How do I know that two people mean the same thing when each says he believes in God? […] Practice gives the words their sense” (Wittgenstein 1998, p. 97e). I will leave it at these examples, as possible references have already been cited with regard to further interpretations (religious belief as part of a world-picture/hinge, as a Weltanschauung or a style of thinking).

Against this background, one can initially conclude that none of the interpretations are wrong, since each of them can be based—sometimes more directly, sometimes less so—on remarks made by Wittgenstein, provided, however, that it is not at the same time claimed that Wittgenstein sees religious belief exclusively as a language-game, a form of life, a hinge, etc., because then one would also have to claim that the other interpretations are wrong. As far as I can see, however, such strong claims are hardly ever made in the literature. Rather, interpreters seem to focus on different aspects of Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief—such as the linguistic expression of religious belief (language-game) or the specific view of or attitude towards the world associated with religious belief (form of life, Weltanschauung), or specific methods of observation and investigation (world-picture, hinge, style of thinking).

However, this also means that in the case of every interpretation, there are remarks that do not seem to fit well with the proposed interpretation. For example, if I relate Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief to the concept of language-games, it becomes difficult (or requires separate argumentation) to integrate the previously quoted remark in which Wittgenstein states that „what is important is not the words you use.” If instead, to give another example, I aim to highlight the non-cognitive aspect of religious belief, its ultimate groundlessness, the impassioned grasping at a rescue-anchor, by linking Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief with the terms ‘language-game’, ‘form of life’, or ‘hinge’, then the question arises how to deal with the following letter from Wittgenstein to Arvid Sjögren dated 9 October 1947:

As strange as it may sound, there is something that can be called religious knowledge or understanding, and one can possess a great deal of it without being very religious, which is a way of life. Some who start to become religious to a certain degree begin with this understanding: religious terms, expressions, start to mean something to them.—Some other, however, come to religion from a different angle. For example, they first become more and more helpful, unselfish, understanding, etc., and eventually religious words begin to mean something to them.—I mean: one person comes to religion almost through a kind of philosophy, another on a path that does not even lead him close to philosophy. […] Like you, I am a thinker. The path that comes naturally to me, and which has taken me relatively far, leads through thinking. But that does not make it the better path! It could rather be called “the path from the outside”

(Wittgenstein 2011, 9 October 1947; my transl.).28

This letter makes it clear that, although Wittgenstein certainly regarded religious belief as a “way of life,” this did not mean that thinking, “religious knowledge, or understanding” played only a subordinate role or no role at all. On the contrary, he explicitly states that his path to religion through thinking had even taken him “relatively far.” (See also Pichler 2025, pp. 6 and 16 on this letter.)

This passage alone casts doubt on the persuasiveness of interpretations that, by linking Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief to concepts such as language-game and form of life, aim to read them primarily or even exclusively as an exclusion of the possibility that knowledge or understanding could be of (great) importance for religious belief. (Furthermore, it seems to me that this letter also challenges quasi-fideism, because the path to religion “almost through a kind of philosophy” (Wittgenstein 2011, 9 October 1947) seems to encompass here also “religious conviction, at its root” (Pritchard 2022, p. 27).)

It would therefore be necessary to attempt a more precise clarification of how the later Wittgenstein understood the relationship between “passionately committing oneself to a system of coordinates || a system of reference” (Wittgenstein 1998, p. 73e) and the “path […] through thinking.” Are there, as the letter suggests, two different paths to religious belief (which would be difficult enough for some interpretations to integrate), but which ultimately are primarily “a way of life”? Or is the relationship between religious life and religious knowledge/understanding even closer? Consider, for example, the remark made on 20 November 1937, in which Wittgenstein puts forward the assumption “that corresponding to every level of devoutness there is a form of expression that has no sense at a lower level” (Wittgenstein 1998, p. 37e). And he goes on to say the following: “For those still at the lower level this doctrine, which means something at the higher level, is null & void; it can only be understood wrongly, & so these words are not valid for such a person” (Wittgenstein 1998, p. 37e). However, here too, the importance of application in life is discussed afterwards: “Paul’s doctrine of election by grace for instance is at my level irreligiousness, ugly non-sense. So it is not meant for me since I can only apply wrongly the picture offered me. If it is a holy & good picture, then it is so for a quite different level, where it must be applied in life quite differently than I could apply it” (Wittgenstein 1998, p. 37e).

With these questions, I would like to show by way of example that Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief seem to preclude a clear and determinate reading when viewed in their entirety. In other words, it seems doubtful to me that the claim can be justified that Wittgenstein regarded religious belief primarily as a language-game (or a group of language-games) and/or as (part of) a form of life or as a hinge or as a ‘Weltanschauung’ or style of thinking.

In my opinion, the exegetical persuasiveness is further limited by the fact that it does not seem possible to specify precisely and comprehensively what Wittgenstein means by the terms mentioned. This has already been described in relation to the term “language-game”: Wittgenstein includes a wide variety of examples under this heading—from repeating a word in the context of language acquisition to “the whole, consisting of language and the activities into which it is woven” (Wittgenstein 2009, §7). So when we say that Wittgenstein understands religious belief as a language-game or a group of language-games, this does not say very much, except that it refers to the interwovenness of language and action (which, at least for Wittgenstein, is not specific to religious belief).

A very similar problem arises with regard to the concept of form of life (see Note 2). There has been much debate about the interpretation of this term in recent decades, with four different positions (in various forms) being primarily represented.29 Newton Garver, for example, argues that Wittgenstein aims at “a common form of life for all human beings” (Garver 1984, p. 49; my transl.), as opposed to that of animals (similarly Clack 1999, pp. 88–89). In this interpretation, humans differ from animals in that they have the ability to learn and use a complex language. Rudolf Haller, by contrast, assumes that Wittgenstein understands the term primarily “in an anthropological-sociocultural sense” (Haller 1984, p. 57; my transl.), i.e., he locates differences in forms of life in different societies, for example. An attempt at reconciliation between these two positions is made by Rafael Ferber, who points out that, given Wittgenstein’s lack of a clear definition, the term is ambiguous and can therefore “be used both” in Haller’s “anthropological-sociocultural sense” and in Garver’s “species-specific sense” (Ferber 1993, p. 273; my transl.; similarly, Biletzki 2010, see Section 2.1). However, he does establish a hierarchy insofar as he says that “without the ‘complicated form of life’ of humans […] the countless and diverse language-games would undoubtedly not exist” (Ferber 1993, p. 273). Finally, Stefan Majetschak argues that Wittgenstein uses ‘form of life’ synonymously with ‘pattern of life’ in various cases and therefore assumes that Wittgenstein primarily means the following by the concept of form of life: “a recurring and recognizable order of action, situation and linguistic utterance features, which the speakers of a language apprehend as structuring regularities within their life and thus designate by a word” (Majetschak 2010, p. 89). ‘Hoping’, for example, would therefore be just as much a pattern/form of life as ‘grief’, etc.

This diversity of possible interpretations of the concept of form of life is also reflected in the various interpretations that seek to link Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief to the concept of form of life.30 Some authors seem to attribute a more limited range to it, thus bringing it closer to the term “language-game;” others see the form of life as something more comprehensive that gives a certain direction to a person’s life as a whole; still others see religious belief as a possibility for a human form of life.

Similar difficulties arise for the other interpretations: How exactly should the riverbed metaphor (see Note 13) be interpreted? What clear evidence is there that Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief can be consistently reconciled with those on world-picture (see Note 12), hinges (see Note 16), or ‘Weltanschauung’ (see Notes 21–24)? Is the evidence for the conception of religious belief as a style of thinking sufficient (especially given that an explicit mention of the term in connection with religious belief can only be found in lecture notes)?

Another potential problem in interpreting Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief seems to me to lie in the way in which various of these remarks are occasionally brought together without going into detail about the differences between them. To illustrate this, let us refer once again to the example already discussed of the two frequently quoted remarks on the system of reference:

The truth of my statements is the test of my understanding of these statements.

That is to say: if I make certain false statements, it becomes uncertain whether I understand them.

What counts as an adequate test of a statement belongs to logic. It belongs to the description of the language-game.

The truth of certain empirical propositions belongs to our frame [system] of reference.

(Wittgenstein 1975, pp. 80–83; my insertion)

It appears to me as though a religious belief could only be (something like) passionately committing oneself to a system of coordinates || a system of reference [Koordinatensystem || Bezugssystem]. Hence although it’s belief, it is really a way of living, or a way of judging life. Passionately taking up this interpretation. And so instructing in a religious belief would have to be portraying, describing that system of reference & at the same time appealing to the conscience. And these together would have to result finally in the one under instruction himself, of his own accord, passionately taking up that system of reference. It would be as though someone were on the one hand to let me see my hopeless situation, on the other depict the rescue-anchor, until of my own accord, or at any rate not led by the hand by the instructor, I were to rush up & seize it.

(Wittgenstein 1998, p. 73e; presentation of alternative formulations changed and my insertion)

If one compares these remarks in their respective contexts, one can indeed discover certain commonalities or similarities (which are the reason for their being brought together in some interpretations), but on the other hand, some differences also become apparent. As already pointed out, the commonality lies in the fact that in both cases there is talk of a ‘system of reference’—in one case ‘our system of reference’, in the other ‘a system of reference’. I am not sure if this difference is significant: from the context, one might assume that ‘our system of reference’ in On Certainty is broader than ‘a system of reference’ in Culture and Value. This would also fit well, for example, with Schönbaumsfeld’s interpretation that religious belief belongs to the “more ‘personal’ hinge-commitments” that “need not be shared by others” (Schönbaumsfeld 2023, p. 34). But this reading would also fit with Majetschak’s interpretation of religious belief as a Weltanschauung in the sense of a “sub-system” (Majetschak 2024, p. 19). However, no definitive references can be found for this.

Similarities can be seen in the fact that in both cases reference is made to the fact that a system of reference is important for life or the way of life. In the remark in Culture and Value, this is explicitly stated, while in the remark in On Certainty, it can be inferred from the context of other remarks, for example, when Wittgenstein points out that, based on our system of reference, certain questions are asked, but not others, that our ways of (not) investigating are influenced, that in case of doubt about the hinges, complete confusion would arise, etc. (cf., e.g., Wittgenstein 1975, §§7, 88, 103, 125, 140, 144, 151, 513–17).

And yet the differences cannot be ignored; these relate above all to the acquisition of certainties. The remark in Culture and Value refers to the fact that the system of reference of religious belief is presented and described, that there is an ‘instruction’ which also involves appealing to a person’s conscience. And the result of this instruction is a conscious, voluntary adoption of religious belief. The situation in On Certainty, however, is quite different. In most cases, there is no question of representing, describing, or deciding; on the contrary, many of the propositions of the world-picture are not explicitly learned at all. Wittgenstein writes, for example, with regard to a child: “It doesn’t learn at all that that mountain has existed for a long time; that is, the question whether it is so doesn’t arise at all. It swallows this consequence down, so to speak, together with what it learns” (Wittgenstein 1975, §143; see also §476). This means that many of the propositions of the world-picture are neither explicitly learned nor is it usually considered necessary to express them later; they “simply get[] assumed as a truism, never called in question, perhaps not even ever formulated” (Wittgenstein 1975, §87). If they are ever expressed, they are not necessarily made available for potential questioning, as Wittgenstein further explains using the example of the “foundations for research and action”: “It may be for example that all enquiry on our part is set so as to exempt certain propositions from doubt, if they are ever formulated. They lie apart from the route travelled by enquiry” (Wittgenstein 1975, §88).31

“I may claim with passion that I know that this (for example) is my foot”, Wittgenstein writes in remark 376 of On Certainty. And he adds in the following remark: “But this passion is after all something very rare, and there is no trace of it when I talk of this foot in the ordinary way” (Wittgenstein 1975, §377) While in the case of religious belief, passionate conviction seems to be a central component for Wittgenstein (however one arrives at this point), this is precisely not the case in the examples he mentions in On Certainty. On the contrary, passion only comes into play when certainty is called into question for some reason—although it is difficult to imagine such a reason, which constitutes a further difference from religious belief. If someone tells me that person X has become religious or has lost their religious belief, then in certain cases this may surprise me (because I may have heard this person make an atheistic statement shortly before or because I knew them previously as a very religious person), but this surprise will be minor compared to the surprise I will feel when I hear that person Y declares ‘with passion’ that this is their foot. I can think of potential reasons for the former (for example, that person X has had certain experiences that led them to believe or caused them to lose their faith), but not for the latter.

If one briefly reviews the main strands of the various interpretations that have developed over the decades, one cannot help but conclude that the respective classifications depend, at least in part, on the broader debates about or inspired by Wittgenstein that are currently taking place. Whereas initially there was mainly interest in understanding the terms coined by Wittgenstein and newly introduced into philosophy, e.g., ‘language-game’ and ‘form of life’, and to make them fruitful for other areas (such as religious belief), since hinge epistemology became a prominent topic of discussion, the most common (albeit critically discussed) interpretations are those in which religious belief is understood as a hinge (of whatever kind). The terms ‘language-game’ and ‘form of life’, by contrast, seem to have become something like ‘common vocabulary’ in many current interpretations, which are not considered to require further explanation (although, as described above, they are not defined by Wittgenstein and therefore give rise to very different interpretations).

But there are also very different approaches in other respects: while some interpretations focus primarily on an examination of Wittgenstein’s texts themselves, in recent decades there have been increasingly frequent interpretations that are based primarily on an examination of (influential) texts in the secondary literature and in which Wittgenstein’s own remarks are hardly taken up or analyzed in any detail. (I have not dealt with the latter in this essay.) To avoid misunderstandings: of course, Wittgenstein research cannot and should not be limited to Wittgenstein exegesis. However, it seems appropriate to me that in the case of interpretations that use Wittgenstein’s thoughts only as a starting point for their own considerations, which go far beyond his statements, this should also be clearly indicated. Saul Kripke (who, of course, studied Wittgenstein’s writings very intensively) sets an exemplary precedent here. In the preface to his book Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982), he states that his book “is hardly a commentary on Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, nor even on Philosophical Investigations,” on the grounds that he does not deal with many of the questions discussed there (Kripke 1982, p. vii). In the introduction, he furthermore explicitly points out that his presentation of Wittgenstein’s ‘private language argument’ would probably not have been approved by Wittgenstein himself, and goes on to state the following: “So the present paper should be thought of as expounding neither ‘Wittgenstein’s’ argument nor ‘Kripke’s’: rather Wittgenstein’s argument as it struck Kripke, as it presented a problem for him” (Kripke 1982, p. 5).

As is probably already apparent from my remarks so far, I myself do not believe that Wittgenstein’s own remarks on religious belief can be convincingly systematized in any way—regardless of whether one attempts to do so by linking them to the terms ‘language-game’, ‘form of life’, ‘hinge’, ‘world-picture’, ‘Weltanschauung’ or ‘style of thinking’. Here, I find the arguments of the critical approaches more convincing, namely that, on the one hand, the diversity of the various aspects that Wittgenstein addresses in connection with religious belief is lost in such an attempt at systematization; and that, on the other hand, Wittgenstein himself does not undertake a comprehensive investigation of religious belief, but only takes up those aspects that concern him personally and philosophically. In both cases (attempting to systematize or only considering the aspects of religious belief addressed by Wittgenstein), one would probably be making an inappropriate reduction. However, if one were to conclude against this background that Wittgenstein’s remarks should only be used as a starting point for one’s own positions that go beyond his own statements, it would be desirable to indicate this clearly enough.

4. Conclusions

The fact that very different interpretations of Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious belief have been developed in recent decades is probably due not least to the fact that he did not write a longer treatise on this subject (only a few detailed thoughts can further be found in students’ notes of the ‘Lecture on religious belief”). Furthermore, his remarks (from various years), which are generally rather brief, are scattered throughout his Nachlass, often without any connection to preceding or subsequent remarks. In many of these interpretations (or at least in the most widely discussed ones), these remarks are systematized insofar as other terms from Wittgenstein’s later philosophy are used to explain his remarks on religious belief, thereby trying to clarify Wittgenstein’s understanding of religious belief and make it fruitful for positions in the philosophy of religion or theology. While the terms ‘language-game’ and ‘form of life’ were initially the main focus, it is now primarily the term ‘hinge’ that is used for interpretation. Further possible connections, which are less frequently explored (which, to a certain extent, also demonstrates the selective character of the interpreters’ choices), exist with the terms ‘Weltanschauung’ and ‘style of thinking’. This diversity of (and tension between) different interpretative approaches is further reinforced by the fact that the use of these terms by Wittgenstein is understood in different ways, which is made possible above all by his abstention from definitions. However, in my opinion, this is precisely where the first problem of all these systematizing interpretations lies: Just as for each interpretation there are remarks by Wittgenstein that support that interpretation, there are also remarks that are in tension with it, if not in contradiction. A second problem is that Wittgenstein’s own reflections on religious belief do not aim at a general thesis; rather, he takes up specific aspects that concern him, both personally and philosophically. Consequently, this also makes it clear that authors who pick out one of these facets and use it as the starting point for a systematized interpretation go far beyond Wittgenstein’s own remarks and concerns. Of course, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this—provided that this interpretation is not presented as the position of Wittgenstein.